


Bickering and Body Swaps

by LapfulofMisha



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Mentions, Angry squinting, Canon Divergent, Cas's body retains his angelic powers, Crack, Crowley is more powerful than Cas, Food Fights, M/M, Mentions of Violence, Mob Mentality, Mount Rushmore, Roweena can teleport, Smiting of an innocent remote control, Wings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-25 23:24:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9851555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LapfulofMisha/pseuds/LapfulofMisha
Summary: A job gone wrong leads to bickering. And food fights. Bobby gets Roweena involved. Dean wakes up in Cas's body. Cas wakes up in Sam's body. Sam wakes up in Dean's body. What could possibly go wrong?





	1. Abuse of Pie, Destruction of Inanimate Objects, and Cas is Fucking Done

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Castielsgracex for brainstorming with me and coming up with some great ideas for this fic!

**Day 1**

Bobby knows something is wrong; he just can't figure out what. 

There is arguing. There is swearing. There is . . . pounding.  Bobby goes into his living room to investigate the ruckus. He is greeted with the sight of Sam and Dean wrestling violently on the couch, obviously fighting over something. Dean smacks Sam’s arm and the TV remote sails across the room and hits a very stunned Cas in the face.

The remote falls to the floor. Cas rubs his sore cheek and narrows his eyes at the boys. Cas’s hand lights up with whitish-blue fire. He smites the remote. The smell of burnt plastic fills the air.

“What the _fuck_?” Sam and Dean shout simultaneously. They both begin berating Cas:

Sam: “Man, hitting you was an accident! You didn’t have to take it out on the remote!”

Dean: “Damnit, Cas, how're we supposed to watch Netflix without a remote?”

“You’ll live,” Cas snaps. “Be glad I didn’t smite _you_.”

Dean turns his attention to Sam and angrily shoves him off the couch. "Get _off_ me."

"None of this would have happened if you'd just listened to me," Sam complains, gesturing to the ruined remote. "Any hunter could've done that demon job. We should have gone to the Black Hills for the weekend to, oh, I don't know, _relax_ for once!" 

"If you wanted to relax, we should've gone to Vegas! Gambling, drinking, sex . . . _that's_ relaxing! Looking at faces carved into a mountain is just . . . not!" Dean glares at him before adding, "nerd."

"I've never seen Mt. Rushmore, okay? Don't be a dick!"

Bobby opens his mouth to ask Cas what’s going on, but Cas disappears.

“ _Balls_ ,” he mutters.

**Day 2**

“If you put your hands on my baby, I will _cut them off!_ ” Dean’s features are distorted in fury; his face has surpassed red and is approaching crimson. 

“You need to move your car!” Sam retorts. “It’s blocking in Bobby’s truck and I need to go to town! Either move it or give me the damn keys, and I’ll move it!”

Dean dangles the keys in the air. “What, these keys?” he taunts.

“Dean. Stop being a child,” Sam threatens. He shifts his weight back and forth from foot to foot, looking like he’s a cat about to pounce.

Bobby, having noticed the brothers have been outside by themselves for a while, cautiously walks out into the yard. He sees them by the Impala and sighs. He heads over to the arguing brothers.

_“Dean!”_

Sam lunges forward and grabs the keys. They both end up rolling in the dirt.

“Cas?” Bobby calls, looking toward the sky. “A little help here?”

Cas appears next to Bobby, looking annoyed. “What is it now?” he growls.

Bobby ignores Cas's testiness. The popping sound of punches hitting skin and groans of pain fill the salvage yard. “They’re fighting over the keys to the Impala. Cas, what the hell is going on around he-“

He doesn’t get the chance to finish the word ‘here’ before Cas is next to the boys. He grabs Dean away from his brother, forcefully, and effortlessly tosses him onto the ground a few feet away.

“What the hell?” Dean hollers, rubbing his elbow. “You son of a bitch!”

Sam, victorious, scoops up the keys from the dirt, making what Dean lovingly calls his "bitch face". “Finally, I can move your stupid car. Cas is on _my_ side.”

“Your _side_? What are you, twelve? Give me back my damn keys and DON’T TOUCH MY CAR.” Dean scrambles to his feet and goes to stand in front of the Impala.

Suddenly the keys fly from Sam’s hand into Cas’s. He looks maliciously from Sam to Dean, then down to the keys. Then he looks at the car.

Dean, who knows the angel better than the others, seems to realize what Cas has in mind. His eyes grow wide and he yells, “Cas! Don’t you DARE!”

But it’s too late. Cas has disappeared. And he’s taken the Impala with him.

**A few days ago . . .**

After two days of following a trail of bodies, Sam and Dean finally catch up to the demon. They trap him under a tree after Cas mojos a devil’s trap into the dirt under the grass.

“You are one sick son of a bitch,” Dean says in a loud whisper. “Doing those people the way you did? They had _families._ ”

The demon smirked. “I was bored. It was fun.”

“You have a pretty fucked up idea of fun, pal,” Dean tells him.

Just then a snake with a poor sense of self-preservation slithers its way between Dean and the demon. Its scaly belly rubs along the ground just hard enough to disrupt the devil’s trap. Cas barely has time to shout out a warning.

The demon smokes out as a familiar voice behind them says, “hello, boys.”

Sam and Dean whip around to face Crowley.

“I see my new assistant has attracted your attention.” Crowley raises an eyebrow. “I have to say," he continues pleasantly, "I’m getting tired of you three knuckleheads spoiling my plans.”

“You should be used to it by now,” Cas points out.

“Oh, I am. That’s why I’ve thought of a suitable, and admittedly very satisfying, solution.”

Sam, Dean and Cas looked from one to the other uneasily.

“Crowley, whatever you’re planning –“

Crowley swishes his hand, and Cas grabs his head in pain and falls to the ground.

Dean flinches. “What the hell did you do to Cas?”

“You'll find out soon enough, Squirrel.” Another hand swish and Dean is rolling in the dirt, his head a swirling mass of agony.

Sam lunges toward Crowley and is met with a similar fate.

“You see, the three of you are an endless source of pain to me,” Crowley says casually, as if talking to a group of friends over tea. “My special project of late has been finding a way to . . . distract you. I figure if you’re all bickering with each other, you have no time left to bother me.”

Inspecting his work, he nods. “Looks like I’ve succeeded. The physical effects will wear off soon. After that, well. Have fun.”

**Day 3**

“Finally, something to be happy about.”

Dean sits at Bobby’s kitchen table and rubs his hands together in anticipation. Before him sits a giant heap of apple pie. He piles liberal amounts of whipped cream onto it before digging in with his fork. The pie is scrumptious.

The noise he makes is absolutely undignified.

“What the hell was that noise?” Sam asks as he comes barging into the kitchen.

“That was a little slice of heaven, Sammy. I might even share.” Dean nods toward the pie pan sitting on top of Bobby’s old stove.

“Thanks, I’ll have a salad.” He looks judgmentally at Dean and crosses his arms.

“Don’t take that superior tone with me! At least I’m enjoying life. You can eat all the salads in the world, Sammy, but when a demon offs you, it won’t make any difference.”

“A demon won’t _catch_ me. You are what you eat, Dean, and you are 42% junk food and 58% alcohol.”

At this point they notice Cas standing by the stove, watching them both. He has no expression whatsoever on his face. He opens his mouth to say something, but Dean cuts him off.

“You don’t get to be part of this argument,” Dean informs him. He may or may not sound like an actual two-year-old. “You don’t eat.”

“Yeah,” Sam chimes in, also sounding like a two-year-old. “You don’t even have a stomach.” The argument is somewhat inaccurate but Sam doesn’t care.

“But I do have ears,” Cas snaps. He picks up the pie from the stove and throws it in Sam’s face.

“NO!” Dean howls. “MY PIE!” He puts a bite of pie on his fork and flings it catapult – style at Cas. Sam grabs a handful of pie as it slides down his own face and flings it at Cas at the same time.

Cas, having supernatural powers, has a definite advantage in this melee. He disappears and reappears behind Dean, after making a millisecond-long stop at a bakery.

He’s holding a very large stack of pies.

He takes turns, flinging one at Dean, then one at Sam. His trench coat has at least three different flavors splattered on it because he is careless and gets half the pie on himself. He is squinting angrily as he changes tactics and smashes cream pie down the front of Dean’s shirt.

“That’s freezing cold, you son of a bitch!” Dean yells in an unnaturally high voice.

Cas then materializes behind Sam and smashes pie into his hair, making sure to mush it in between every strand. Since he’s paying attention to squashing cinnamon flavored apple slices into Sam’s scalp, he fails to notice Dean come flying across the room until he tackles him.

Dean, having the benefit of surprise, quickly has the angel pinned to the ground. “Sam! I’ve got him!”

Sam needs no more encouragement. He grabs the nearest pie and mushes it into Cas’s hair and face. Cas yelps and struggles under Dean. Sam grins maliciously. The dude messed with his _hair_ , and karma’s a bitch.

They hear a shotgun fire.

The three of them pause and look up at Bobby, who looks like he might smite the lot of them, even without angel powers. “I don’t know what has gotten into you idjits-“

Bobby gets hit in the face with a pie.

The three boys resume their slippery wrestling match as Bobby looks on in horror.

“That’s IT,” he grumbles.

*****

Bobby suspects Crowley almost immediately. Crowley is the only one, other than the archangels, with enough power to affect Cas, as far as he knows. Whatever Crowley has done to the boys, it’s obviously powerful shit. He’s going to need help from someone powerful enough to counteract the magic.

Rowena.

He’d heard the boys mention her. Crowley’s mother. Summoning a witch wasn’t the best idea in the world, but he has to do something before the idjits in his kitchen kill each other.

He begins gathering what he needs for the spell, and to his great surprise, Rowena appears in his living room before he utters a word.

“Need a little help with my son’s handiwork, I imagine. Ye needn’t bother with that.” Her rich accent fills the room as she gestures nonchalantly at the book in Bobby’s hand. 

“You wanna tell me what the hell is going on? Why are you here?” Bobby eyes her suspiciously. There’s no way her random appearance is _random_.

“Ah, I’ve been monitoring my son’s activities. He’s putting his efforts into personal vendettas when he should be strengthening his kingdom.” She scoffs and rolls her eyes. “If it weren’t for his loving mother, I can’t imagine what would become of him.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t give two shits about Crowley.” Bobby is still eyeing her warily. “But I need my boys back in working condition. Can you counteract whatever spell he concocted?”

“Oh, I _can_ ,” she says, grinning. “It’s an especially nasty one, though. Eventually their fighting will become more violent. They’ll rip each other to shreds.”

Bobby sighs. This will not be an easy negotiation. “What is it you want?” he asks wearily.

“Ooh, I don’t know.” She wanders through the room, running her fingers across some of the books on the shelves. “How about a promise.”

“What kind of promise?”

She smiles. Her red curly hair bounces around her shoulders as she turns to look at Bobby. “Fergus does have one good point. You meddle. It gets tiresome, having to keep an eye on you while trying to fix Hell. I want you to promise to keep away from us. And not just you. _All hunters_.”

There’s a loud crash in the kitchen, followed by the sound of glass breaking as a chair is thrown through the window.

“Son of a bitch,” Bobby sighs. “I can’t promise that . . .”

Roweena hums. “I thought you might say that. Well, I have to get going, things to do . . .”

“Damnit Roweena, there must be something. Look, I can’t control every damn hunter in the network. You have to know that.”

“Ah, but you can definitely put the word out. And control your children.” She looks toward the kitchen as glass shatters again and Sam strings together a truly impressive number of swear words.

“I’ll do what I can,” Bobby tells her skeptically with a worried glance toward the kitchen.

“Not good enough.”

“Balls! I’ll do what I can!”

Rowena looks him over. “I think you will. I believe you. But I’m not sure that’s good enough. I’ll fix the boys. But I’ll also give you some . . . incentive.”

She vanishes.

“What the hell does that mean?” Bobby mutters. He goes to the kitchen to break up the brawl and assess the damage.

**Day 4**

Dean wakes up the next morning. He is surprised not to feel the aches and pains he expected after the whole kitchen/pie incident yesterday. In fact, his body feels incredible. He hasn’t felt this good in years.

He walks into the bathroom to pee, but finds he doesn’t have to.

“Great,” he mutters. Maybe the copious amounts of alcohol he consumes have finally fucked up his kidneys.

He looks in the mirror. Cas is staring back at him.

“Hey!” he shrieks. “This isn’t funny, man. Get the hell out of my mirror!” Of all the lame, weird practical jokes the guy could play, this just is not funny.

Cas doesn’t answer. Instead, his lips move in exactly the same way as Dean’s. Dean reaches out his right hand and touches the mirror. Cas does the same thing.

Almost like . . . it’s Dean’s reflection.

Dean reaches up to his face and feels chapped lips. He reaches into his hair and feels a thick, lush mess. Now that he’s wide awake and paying attention, he feels an electric charge running through his body. He feels a strange tingling near his shoulder blades. He looks down at his hands and sees long, soft fingers instead of rough, calloused hands.  He looks back to the mirror.

There’s really no denying what has happened here. He is in Cas’s body. And not in a sexy way.

“SAMMY!” he yells.

He flees the bathroom and runs into Sam in the living room. “Sam. Thank god. Look at me. Who am I?”

“I’m uh, I’m not Sam. I’m Castiel. And you must be Dean.” He looks deeply unsettled. With Sam’s face. He’s using Sam’s face to look deeply unsettled.

“What the hell is going on? And where’s Sam? I mean, uh, me?”

Sam wanders into the room in Dean’s body.

 “Guys, I think we have a problem,” Sam says in Dean's voice.

“At least I don’t feel like smiting either one of you anymore,” Cas observes.

“Will someone please tell me how I SUDDENLY BECAME CAS?” Dean looks across the room at his own body in horror. “And what the hell are you doing in my body?” he demands of his brother.

“Dude, I – I –"

Sam is apparently at a loss for words.

Cas is reaching up and tangling his fingers into Sam’s hair. “How do you stand having this much hair hanging off your head?” he asks, obviously irritated.

“Dude,” says Sam from Dean’s body. “Don’t mess with the hair.”

“I have no malicious intent toward your hair, Sam,” says Cas.

Dean, via Cas’s body, suddenly starts laughing.

“Okay, Dean, stop making Cas’s body laugh. It’s not . . .natural.” Sam is giving Dean a dirty look from Dean's own body. This makes Dean laugh even harder.

“Sammy,” he snorts. “Cas.” He tries desperately to control himself. “Do you guys even realize the incredible possibilities of this situation?”

Sam and Cas exchange a look. “What do you mean?” Cas asks cautiously.

“Well for instance. How do I manifest your wings? I mean, you do have actual wings, right?” Dean looks positively gleeful. Cas’s eyes (in Sam’s body) grow huge.

“Dean! You can’t – don’t – my wings – I – “

Dean giggles. Sam at least makes an effort to keep a straight face.

None of them notice that Bobby has walked into the room and is watching the three of them in abject horror.

“I can see the possibilities,” notes Sam. “I could go out right now and get a tattoo across your face, Dean.”

Dean glares at his brother. “Don’t. You. Fucking. Dare.”

Sam can’t pass up the opportunity to freak out his brother.

“I think I’ll get a big red heart tattooed on your forehead. And it will say, I love Sam, in big black letters.”

“If you do that, Sam, I will be forced to shave your head.” Cas, of course, stands up for Dean.

Before Sam can respond, Dean shouts out in surprise as Cas’s wings sprout out from his body.

“Balls!” mutters Bobby.


	2. Oops

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean deals with Cas's wings. Sam deals wih Cas's appetite. Cas is just fucking done. Bobby wishes there was more whiskey on the planet because currently there's a shortage.

 

Cas stares at his own body in horror. His ebony wings are puffed up and rigid. Which means they are filling the room. Dean has fallen backwards onto his butt with the sudden change in Cas’s body’s weight.

“Woah,” Dean whispers, looking back and forth at the wings sprouting from either side of him.

 “D-D-Dean!” Cas stutters. “Put those away!”

“Dude, you’ve been holding out on us,” Dean tells Cas in awe. “Sammy look at these things! They’re AWESOME!”

Cas watches as Dean’s body makes its way over to his wings. Sam gently reaches out and touches them and Dean yelps.

“What the hell was that?” he asks, looking at Cas with huge eyes. “That felt – Oh my god. _Oh my GOD.”_

Cas rolls his eyes and walks over to his own body. He takes the opportunity to study his own wings. He’s never actually seen them from this angle. They need a little grooming. Forgetting himself, he reaches out to straighten a few of the flight feathers.

 _“CAS!”_ Dean moans.

Sam, being Sam, is fascinated by the wings and their . . . properties. “Cas, your wings, are they some sort of erogenous zone for angels?”

Cas stares at Dean’s body calmly asking him about his _erogenous_ _zones_. He registers the sound of Bobby coughing in the background, even with Sam’s body’s unbelievably limited human senses.

“Yes,” Cas admits. He suddenly feels the need to retaliate against Dean for manifesting his wings (even though a small voice in his mind tells him there was no way Dean could control that particular event). But it’s been a long couple of days.

And Cas isn’t exactly _himself_.

He reaches out and pulls at the puffy feathers near Dean’s shoulder.

*****

Dean moans helplessly as Cas touches the sensitive, soft little feathers at the top of the wings. He is horrified to discover the bulge in his pants. On top of that (and _oh god what a poor choice of words_ , thinks Dean), the mild electric sizzling ( _Castiel’s grace_ , he thinks in awe) has become almost unbearably hot throughout his body.

Cas is smirking at him.

“Dude,” Dean says, and his voice breaks as if he is a teenager. Well, Cas’s voice breaks, he thinks with relief. He can’t be blamed for Cas’s voice sounding wrecked. Dean manages to say, “You can’t molest me while you’re wearing my brother.”

Bobby is drinking whiskey straight from the bottle at nine o’clock in the morning.

Sam clears Dean’s throat. “Uh, dude, that is a little disturbing to watch.”

Cas can’t help it. He hasn’t forgotten the two brothers ganging up on him in the pie fight. And while his recent anger with them has finally subsided, he is now feeling decidedly playful. And maybe he wants a little payback.

Flipping Sam’s highly annoying hair from his face, he reaches both hands into his own wings and strokes through the feathers.

Dean comes in Cas’s pants with a shout that breaks three windows.

“Damnit, Cas!”

“Damnit, ya idjits!”

Cas looks innocently at Bobby, which means he’s using Sam’s puppy dog face. “I hadn’t realized how badly my wings needed grooming,” he fake-apologizes. “I had no idea Dean would be so . . . weak.”

Dean is blushing furiously.

Sam mutters something about Dean’s body needing alcohol. He walks over to Bobby and grabs the bottle of whiskey from his hand. He takes a large gulp, and Bobby grabs the bottle back away from him. Bobby manages to look even more disgruntled than usual.

Dean tries to get up, but can’t find his balance with the wings. He puts his hands over Cas’s face and mumbles, “can someone get me some clean boxers, at least?”

*****

Sam is struggling a bit with his own issues. He feels _bald_ , for one thing. Not to mention that being in his brother’s body is just creepy. He has a pretty good idea of what his brother does in the dark with this body. Sam shudders.

He is a bit jealous that Dean got to be in Cas’s body.  He would love to be able to feel the wings at his back and grace surging through him. And he has to admit, he’d like to know the feeling of soft hands in feathers. Scholarly curiosity, of course.

Perhaps the worst part of this whole situation is that _no one seems upset by it_. They should all be terrified, Sam thinks. Sam remembers the utter horror of trading bodies with a teenager years ago. Although he, Dean and Cas are all very close, Sam seems to be the only one feeling unnerved by these events. Bobby looks positively guilty, but Sam can’t quite bring himself to question him just yet. The guy is downing whiskey like it’s water from the fountain of youth.

*****

A short while later, after Dean is cleaned up, Cas begins to feel strange. He recognizes the feeling from when he was human. He is hungry.

Having helped Dean up to a chair, Cas decides his body and his wings are safe enough that he can leave Dean for a few moments to go into Bobby’s kitchen and find some food. Sam follows him.

Cas finds a leftover hamburger and some potatoes from Bobby’s previous night’s supper. He grabs the plate out of the fridge and adds a generous helping of butter to the potatoes before putting the leftovers in Bobby’s microwave.

“Cas.” Sam says sharply. “You are not putting that in my body.”

“I’m hungry,” he answers simply.

“So eat something healthy,” Sam demands.

Cas does the head tilt in Sam’s body, which just looks _weird_.

“I have discovered,” Cas informs him, “that the food you prefer does not satisfy hunger.”

Sam rolls Dean’s eyes. “Dude-“

“CAS!!! HEEELLLLPPPPPPPPP!” howls Cas’s voice from the other room.

Cas and Sam rush to Dean, just in time to see him teleport from the room.

The clothes he'd been wearing are laying in a heap on the floor.


	3. Dean Stretches His . . . Well, Cas's . . . Wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean draws a whole lot of attention . . . Sam, Cas and Bobby frantically try to find him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't abandoned this story, I promise!  
> As usual my manic self is working on a whole bunch of projects at once, including another fic, which is unlike anything I've ever written before. It will be really long, really sci-fi-ish, and an absolute angst fest.  
> ANYHOW let's get back to this story! Enjoy! Comments always appreciated! Thank you for reading!!  
> ALSO check new tags before reading.

A couple of loose feathers gently drift back and forth in the whoosh of air that follows Dean’s abrupt departure.

“Dean!” Cas yells.

“Damnit!” Sam yells.

“Son of a bitch!” Bobby yells.

Cas walks over to the spot where Dean was. Sam’s hair is in his face, _again_ and he’s determined to get the man a haircut, but first they need to find Dean. Cas hopes (but doesn’t say out loud) that Dean hasn’t buried himself _inside the planet_. Or at the bottom of the ocean. Or thirty thousand feet in the air. There are lots of horrifying possibilities, and Cas tries to stave off his growing panic.

“He could be anywhere, couldn’t he, Cas?” Bobby says resignedly.

Cas looks up at Bobby and sighs. “Yes.” He hopes Bobby hasn’t realized yet what _anywhere_ could mean.

"Has anyone else realized that wherever he is, he left a little something behind?" Sam points to the pile of clothes. Bobby's eyes fall closed. Cas remains expressionless. Sam seems to be keeping a cool head, all things considered. “Okay,” he says, and by the look Sam is wearing on Dean’s face, he is obviously formulating a plan to find Dean. “Cas, when you teleport, how do you reach your destination?”

Cas looks at him blankly. “By teleporting,” he deadpans.

“Helpful, Cas,” mutters Sam. Dean’s voice makes it sound more sarcastic than Sam intended. “What I mean is, how do you, uh, _aim_ for your destination?”

Cas does the typical Cas thing and tilts his head and squints at Sam.

(“Now that just looks weird,” mumbles Bobby.)

“I don’t _aim_. I locate the position in four-dimensional space, disperse my vessel’s atoms and absorb them into my true form, travel faster than light outside of Space-Time using my wings as propulsion, and reassemble my vessel’s atoms at the destination.”

Sam clears Dean’s throat. “Yeah, I don’t think Dean did that.”

Bobby looks thoughtfully at Cas. “Dean couldn’t have gotten very far, then, do you think?”

“He could have, theoretically, transported himself anywhere on or above the Earth,” Cas answers carefully. The amount of Grace in his body is probably sufficient to teleport Dean just about anywhere. “But he would have to have some understanding of particle physics to “aim” for a destination and get there. I’m guessing my Grace panicked when it no longer felt connected to me, and propelled my body as a response. Similar to a fight-or-flight response, I think.”

“And where would your Grace go to feel safe?” Bobby asks drily.

“Anywhere,” Cas says dejectedly. “So we need to locate _him_. He won’t be able to figure out how to return to us.”

*****

Dean finds himself in the middle of a busy parking lot. He decides immediately that having wings is not nearly as awesome as he originally thought. He is still unsure of what happened: one minute he was sitting at Bobby’s house, the next minute he felt a surge of power flow through him, and the wings flung him through space at the speed of holy fuck.

At least he somehow managed to land on his feet. He quickly assesses the state of his (Cas’s) body.

Wings – ok.

Head – ok.

Limbs – ok. 

Dick - ok. 

Wait. _Dick?_ Why can he see -

Oh, crap.

Two cars heading down the lane he is standing in swerve at the last minute to avoid him. Both vehicles swerve into unoccupied parked cars, but cause very little damage since they were going slow to begin with. A truly unnecessary number of swear words ring through the air, considering all of the vehicles involved were pieces of newer model crap anyway, in Dean’s opinion. 

People have stopped walking from their cars and are staring at him. Several have already pulled out their phones and are filming him. The people closest to him are grabbing their children and pulling them away. A few others are talking frantically into their phones.

Dean realizes he needs to get to safety, and quickly. First of all, he needs to figure out where he is, then he needs to find a way to call Bobby. Cas’s wings are dragging on the ground, and he realizes he can use them to cover himself. He tries to move them, but - they won't budge. Helplessly, he grabs at them, trying to pull them in front of himself. He realizes very quickly that he's made a terrible mistake.

He gasps as he feels his own fingers wrapped tightly around handfuls of sensitive feathers, the resulting tingle as erotic as having his hair pulled. His - _Cas's_ impressive anatomy springs to life. Dean lets go of the wings and frantically tries to think of the least sexy things imaginable in rapid succession: the smell of Sam's socks . . . the moldy grapes festering in Bobby's fridge . . . disco music . . . 

Suddenly, the wings flare out. The sight of a six foot man with a twelve foot wingspan is apparently enough to send everyone into hysterics.

Things go from bad to worse when someone yells, “It’s a sign! The end is nigh! God has sent us a sign! Repent! REPENT!”

“This isn’t a sign of anything,” Dean says incredulously, but no one hears him. People are getting over the initial shock of seeing a (ridiculously hot, naked) guy with giant black wings materialize in the middle of a parking lot, and they are starting to lose their shit.

A woman almost immediately responds to the naysayer. “God didn’t send this guy! He’s obviously an ALIEN!”

Other people soon feel the need to add to the crazy. A fist fight breaks out a couple lanes over, and Dean hears a windshield shatter as a guy’s body crumples against it.

A moment later a news van pulls into the parking lot and out jumps a cameraman and a reporter, who begin charging toward Dean. He hears the sound of sirens as police cars and a fire truck pull into the parking lot from a different direction.

 _How the hell do I get out of here?_ Dean wonders, trying not to panic.

*****

Sam, Cas and Bobby are frantically discussing ideas on how to find Dean. Cas suggests Dean may have teleported to a place he has a fond memory of, or a place he wants to visit. He says Dean’s brain and his own Grace may have worked together to send him somewhere he wanted to go.

"Checking every bar with whiskey and hot waitresses in unrealistic," Sam laments.

Bobby rolls his eyes. “If you were to witness someone with big black wings pop up out of thin air, what would your first reaction be?”

Sam snorts. “I’d get my phone out and record it.”

 _“Exactly,”_ says Bobby.

Sam’s eyes widen in understanding. He quickly logs on to his laptop.

“Oh crap,” he says in Dean’s voice.

Cas walks to Sam and looks over his shoulder.

“Hashtag, SexyWingGuy,” Sam says incredulously. “Look at this.”

Bobby joins them and they watch a shaky video of Cas’s body. Dean has apparently landed in the most public place imaginable. There are people everywhere.

Sam whistles. "Wow, Cas - I thought I was big," he says appreciatively.

"AND now I need to boil my eyes AND my ears!" Bobby growls.

Cas ignores them both and carefully studies the video, looking for anything that might help him identify the location.

“Just raise your phone a little,” he mutters at the person documenting Dean as he smashes Cas's wings into parked cars as he runs.

As if hearing Cas’s command, the person raises the phone just enough for Sam to see faces carved into the mountainside behind the commotion in the parking lot.

“I know where Dean is,” he announces. “Let’s go.”

 

 


	4. #SexyWingGuy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean gets stuck in public. Cas begins to figure out who's behind their predicament. Sam finds something unsettling on Twitter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First update in nine months - Now that I'm done with DCBB 2017 I can devote myself to my many half-finished projects! I rewrote a few things in some of the first chapters to make some of my new ideas work, FYI.

Running with wings sprouting from your back is obviously a skill that requires a great deal of practice, Dean thinks bitterly, not to mention balance. He had no chance of escaping these people. If only he could get Cas’s goddamn wings to work. At least he no longer needs to worry about arousal, thanks to the cold wind biting at his skin like a thousand tiny teeth.

He is currently surrounded on all sides by local police officers, park rangers, the State Patrol, the National Guard, and – two priests. The most disturbing part of this debacle, however, is the crow perched on his wing who apparently finds his feathers fascinating and _will not leave them alone_ and just . . . no.

Dean, hands raised, tries to reason with the circle of authorities (who currently are aiming rifles, handguns, dart guns, and – seriously? – _crucifixes_ at him).

“Hey, guys, this isn’t what it looks like!” Dean grimaces as the crow plucks a feather from the top of his left wing.

“Really?” asks an officer. “Cause what it looks like is -” She looks helplessly at her colleagues, who shrug.

“Guys – can you put the weapons down, at least? I’m not dangerous! I mean, I’m – _naked_!”

The crow hops across to the other wing, and Dean grits his teeth. If that bird craps in Cas’s feathers, he will _never_ hear the end of it.

“Yeah. Whatever, bird man.” He hears the sound of safeties clicking and bullets entering chambers. “You’re coming with us.”

*****

Although Cas (who is the only fully sober person in the car) drives impressively fast, it takes almost four hours to reach Mount Rushmore. When they get there, they can’t get in; the National Guard is blocking off the entrance to the National Park. Helicopters are flying over the monument. Cas pulls off the road before reaching the camouflaged Jeeps and two heavily armed, uniformed women turning tourists away.

“Guess we found ‘im,” Bobby mutters.

He rolls down the window and looks through a pair of binoculars toward the concentration of helicopters hovering near the Four Faces carved into the side of the mountain. Yup- there’s Cas’s body, aka Dean, clinging to Abraham Lincoln’s nose like a geological booger.

Sam reaches up to run his hands through his hair, and huffs in frustration when his fingers find Dean’s hair instead. “We’ve got to get him down from there before this becomes an even bigger disaster. Cas – can’t you – I don’t know, communicate with your body somehow?”

Cas narrows his eyes and glares at Sam in the rearview mirror. “Can you communicate with yours?” he snaps.

“Obviously not, but I’m not an angel!”

“I’m not either, at the moment!”

“Uh, guys?” Bobby says.

“And while we’re on the subject,” Cas continues angrily, gripping the steering wheel tightly, “your shoes are too small, and they’re hurting my – your – my feet.”

“Guys?” Bobby says with more urgency, still scanning the mountains through the binoculars.

“My shoes are _not_ too small!” Sam says indignantly.

“Then your feet are too big!”

“Hey! Shut up, ya damn fools!” Bobby lays the binoculars down. “We have bigger problems!”

Sam and Cas shut their mouths and turn to glower at Bobby.

“I hate to _bother you_ , but Dean is _gone_.”

*****

As soon as they’d gotten into the car, Sam and Bobby began to argue over a plan to find Dean, so Cas tried to resolve the problem on his own.

While driving across the state, Castiel had, in fact, tried to reach out to his Grace (not that he would admit this to Sam). He still retained a small part of it while in Sam’s body, and he’d hoped he could use it to contact the Grace within Dean. He hadn’t held onto much Grace when they all switched bodies, but, there was enough that if Sam had not been a vessel to begin with, his body would have exploded from even that tiny bit.  

Knowing this situation could, in fact, have been worse, is of little comfort to Cas.

He’s worried about his own body, especially his wings; Dean has never experienced using a body with wings before. If he were to damage them, Cas would be trapped here while they healed. Furthermore, he doesn’t want to be stuck inside of Sam for the rest of his life. Not that anything is wrong with Sam’s body, but Dean would never be able to see him as separate from his brother, and Cas’s feelings for Dean are a far cry from _brotherly_.

He’s slightly disappointed that he wasn’t put into Dean’s body, although he can’t put into words why that is.

He’s more worried about whatever magic had enough power to transfer not only souls between bodies, but an angel’s Grace as well. Even more worrisome, who was wielding all that power?

Cas remembers capturing a demon with Sam and Dean; Bobby had stayed in contact from his house. He has little memory of anything that happened immediately after trapping the demon. Perhaps this missing memory was caused by changing bodies, but Castiel suspects something more happened while working that job than what they remembered.

He does know the day after the job was when the arguing began in full force. The petty bickering was severely out of character for the three of them, and Cas wonders why Bobby was the only one unaffected. Castiel had returned to the area where they captured the demon (in between arguments, that was), but could discover nothing that shed light on what had happened to them. Then the bickering stopped and they changed bodies, and again Bobby was unaffected. The real mystery, as far as he’s concerned, is what does Bobby know about it, and why hasn’t he told them?

*****

Dean is profoundly grateful for what he’s going to call the reverse panic button on Castiel’s Grace. He assumes that is how he got away from the monument, anyway. He didn’t land exactly on Bobby’s property, instead he is halfway between there and Brenda’s pie shop. At least he is somewhere familiar, and it only takes a few minutes to walk to his destination.

Dean locates the key that is hidden in the scrapyard and lets himself into Bobby’s house. Now, at least, the four of them can figure out how to fix this, assuming Sam hasn’t figured it out already.

“Sammy?” he calls. Sam doesn’t answer. “Cas? Bobby?”

Dean quickly searches the house, careful not to randomly think of any location that might somehow imply to Castiel’s Grace that he has a desire to _suddenly go there_. The house is exactly as it was when he left.

Dean spots his clothes on the floor and remembers he’s naked. Grabbing the clean boxers that Sam brought him after Cas – did _that_ to him -, he steps into them quickly, then puts on the black pants. He can’t deal with the logistics of getting the shirt and coat around (over? through?) the wings, but at least he feels less exposed now.

He walks to Bobby’s desk and grabs a bottle of whiskey. He’s about to take a drink from the bottle when the clock catches his eye. His hand stops halfway to his mouth. How has it only been a few minutes since he left? He _knows_ hours have passed. Great. Cause what they need is one more thing to worry about.

He needs to find out where the other three have ventured off to, and the best chance of doing that is to see what they were looking up on the computer. He accidentally brushes Cas’s wing against Sam’s open laptop and shivers involuntarily (and since when does Sam go anywhere without his laptop? Another mystery.)

Looking at the photos on Twitter and the comments underneath reveals the hashtag #SexyWingGuy. Seriously? Cas could be getting so much action, Dean thinks incredulously as he scrolls through the tweets beneath the photo of him at Mount Rushmore. He feels a sharp pang of jealousy, and is surprised to realize it’s not because of Cas’s unrealized ability to get girls. It’s because he doesn’t like the thought of anyone else with Cas.


End file.
